Read more about the episode here.

Cristela Guerra: My dad once told me he wanted his ashes spread across the Panama Canal. I played along and asked if I should save for a helicopter. My father was a force. The family physician. Then, doctors found a tumor in fall of 2023. Boppy lasted about two weeks. The earth felt like it trembled, but one thing felt certain, unshakeable, my father’s desire to go home. So we brought his ashes to Panama, where I’ve returned to quite a lot lately to settle his affairs.

“I’ll be back, okay? I’ll be back. Don’t worry.”

This is me saying goodbye to my cats in Boston the last time I left for Panama. I called my mom on the way to the airport, the horizon tinted pink as she asked to pray for me. 

Cristela’s mother: “Padre Santo, gracias te doy por este día gracias te doy por la oportunidad de Cristelita de ir a Panamá. Te pido que tú abras puertas y cierres puertas como siempre.” 

She always asked God to open doors and close doors. 

(MUSIC) 

It’s something she’s sure God did when my parents left Panama almost 40 years ago, a tiny me in tow. My mom and dad, a nurse and a doctor, left in 1986. Panama remained caught in the grip of Manuel Noriega, a dictator trained by the U.S. Military, strange bedfellows.

Every Sunday, the government would air a propaganda show called “Everything for the Homeland.” “Todo Por La Patria.” 

Archival tape: “Las fuerzas de defensa de la República de Panamá…” 

Cristela Guerra: My dad dreamed of practicing medicine in the U.S. My mom imagined a place where Noriega’s henchmen weren’t attacking people in the street. We moved over and over. California, then New York where my sister was born, and eventually South Florida.

My mom supported us working as a nurse. My dad, a pediatrician, sold newspapers until a residency accepted him. 

(MUSIC) 

My childhood embodied the diaspora. School years in the States, but these long, delicious summers in Panama, where my hair curled, my skin tanned, and my smile softened. I’d ride in the back of my grandfather’s blue Jeep, protesting Noriega, my little voice screaming, ‘¡Abajo con la piña!’ a reference to the dictator’s pockmarked face. I grew up longing for those summers, counting down the days until I was in my abuela Elia’s front yard, eating star fruit from her trees. And at the end of each summer, a dread formed in me, and I’d cry all the way back to the States. (MUSIC) 

Then, on the eve of my fifth birthday, we came back to Panama for Christmas break. Blissfully unaware, we’d soon witness our new country bomb our homeland. 

Archival tape: ” Official figures list some 200 Panamanian civilians killed. Locals here say the true figure is nearer a thousand.”

Cristela Guerra: The U.S. Government had grown tired of Noriega. The official story was that the authoritarian was caught drug trafficking and money laundering into the U.S. But some reports say the Panamanian dictator may have double-crossed the CIA, whom he’d long given secrets to. 

Archival tape: “Noriega’s finish?” 

“He was finished along time ago. He held his power by fear.”

Cristela Guerra: The U.S. invaded Panama, toppling him and killing hundreds of Panamanian civilians along the way.

Many were never found, just mass graves and destruction left in the U.S.’s wake. 

Archival tape: “The Vatican called the United States an occupying power in Panama today.” 

Cristela Guerra: The U.S. called it Operation Just Cause, famous for the U.S. Military’s rock and roll assault. They blared the likes of ACDC day and night to drive Noriega out of hiding.

Seriously, there is a whole playlist online.

Archival tape: “If diplomacy can’t move Noriega, why not try rock music? Playing it at full volume outside the Vatican Embassy.” (MUSIC)  

Cristela Guerra: Before we’d left for Panama, my mom packed a frozen turkey in our suitcase, not knowing the U.S. would invade two days later. We made that turkey last as long as we could at my grandmother’s house while explosions went off across Panama City. 

There’s a photograph of four-year-old me from this trip. I’ve got an intense bowl cut and I’m smiling wide in a yard full of mango trees.

Next to me is a U.S. Soldier camouflaged in military garb. His face is painted green and he’s kneeling at my side, holding a big gun. I remember I told him I spoke English. I lived in the United States and hand on my heart I recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I was such an innocent kid. 

(MUSIC) 

Even then, I think a part of me knew the U.S. had a certain cavalier power that it could use against my country whenever it wanted. And I’ve grown up with that knowledge. That if it wanted to, the U.S. could turn on Panama. That it could decide to invade us as easily as it did when I was four eating leftover turkey, hearing bombs. It’s what goes through my mind when I hear Donald Trump suddenly call for control of the Panama Canal, a marvel of modern engineering that allows ships a shortcut from one side of the world to the other, shaving off millions of dollars in costs and months of travel.

Donald Trump: “The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated.”

Cristela Guerra: He’s accused Panama of allowing the Chinese government control of the canal and of overcharging the U.S. Panama vehemently denies both claims. But Trump has declared the U.S. could simply make the canal theirs again. 

Donald Trump: “And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”

Cristela Guerra: So on that recent morning, as I flew to Panama one more time, my mom’s prayers were for more than my travels. I sent them across an ocean to our isthmus, for its sovereignty and place in the world. 

Cristela’s mother: “OK, but text me when you’re leaving.”

Cristela Guerra: “OK, I will.”

Cristela’s mother: “I love you.” 

Cristela Guerra: “OK, I love you too.” 

Cristela’s mother: “Bye, Mommy.” 

Cristela Guerra: “Bye.”

(THEME MUSIC) 

Maria Hinojosa: Futuro Media and PRX, it’s Latino USA, I’m Maria Hinojosa, and today, the fight over the Panama Canal, and what it means for a journalist in the U.S. with deep Panamanian roots. We’ll be right back. No te vayas. (THEME MUSIC FADES OUT) 

We’re joined now by Panamanian American journalist, Cristela Guerra. 

So, Cristela, I just want to ask you because, you know, you actually don’t hear a lot about Panama in U.S. news. 

Cristela Guerra: So, yes, it’s a little place, but there is a deep love we Panamanians have for our home. It’s always been a place of connection, of blended cultures, a main artery for trade through the Americas.

And, you know, um, a fact, in colonial times, enslaved Africans fled ships to freedom in Panama and they made settlements where their heritage was preserved. 

Maria Hinojosa: But currently, Panama is suddenly all over American media because of this decision that Trump has made that he wants to reclaim one of the most important global assets in the history of trade and commerce, and that would be the Panama Canal.

So why don’t you start, Cristela, at the beginning here for our listeners who maybe don’t know the history of the canal. (MUSIC) 

Cristela Guerra: So historically, ships were required to sail around the entire continent of South America to get from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. That costs a lot of time and money. So the French tried to build a shortcut, a canal, in what is now Panama in the 1880s. They weren’t able to because of mosquitoes and diseases.

And so the French approached the U.S. and offered them that contract to build the Panama Canal. 

Maria Hinojosa: But there was this big problem, right? Which is that Panama at that time, it was actually a part of Colombia. 

Cristela Guerra: Exactly. And Colombia initially denied the Americans the right to build. So President Teddy Roosevelt decided, okay, we’ll just support Panamanian independence from Colombia with a fleet of warships.

Maria Hinojosa: Okay, so that’s pretty incredible. And to be clear, there had already been an independence movement brewing in Panama, and this military support from the United States actually enabled that independence to happen. 

Cristela Guerra: So yes, Panama gets its independence, but it comes at a cost. The U.S. establishes what is essentially an American colony inside Panama in the zone where they built the canal.

The U.S. spent over 370 million dollars at the time and finished the canal in 1914. And the U.S. controlled the canal for decades. But in 1977, President Jimmy Carter signed a new treaty that declared the Panama Canal would be owned and controlled by Panama in the year 2000. 

Jimmy Carter: “Fairness and not force should lie at the heart of our dealings with the nations of the world.

Maria Hinojosa: President Carter, may he rest in peace, has received a lot of criticism from Republicans for returning the canal to the country of Panama. 

Cristela Guerra: Yeah, I think one of the quotes that really summarizes the sentiments from those that disagreed with Carter is from one senator at the time, S. I. Hayakawa, who said of the canal, ‘We should hang on to it. We stole it, fair and square.’ And Republicans now, like Ted Cruz, have again expressed a similar entitlement. 

Ted Cruz: “The nation of Panama did not build the Panama Canal. America did. The nation of Panama did not pay for the Panama Canal. America did. The nation of Panama did not give thousands and thousands of lives in building the canal, America did.”

Maria Hinojosa: But that notion, right, that idea that the canal was built by Americans, that isn’t completely accurate, right, Cristela? 

Cristela Guerra: So not entirely. The Americans paid for the construction, but the people who literally built the canal with their hands, who excavated, were mostly Black migrants. Here’s Maya Doig-Acuña, a PhD candidate in African and African American studies and a scholar focused on Afro-Panamanian diaspora at Harvard. Both of her grandmothers worked in the American-controlled Canal Zone in Panama. 

Maya Doig-Acuña: “This language of ownership that’s rooted in this idea or this myth that Americans built the canal when no, not at all. I mean, the workforce, the labor force was, uh, essentially entirely, uh, migrant laborers, um, and overwhelmingly laborers from, um, from the Caribbean. Was like Black, Black West Indian workers. And those are the folks who, you know, sacrificed. Those are the folks who were exploited and those are the folks who were killed in the construction process.”

Maria Hinojosa: So, for you, Cristela, you too are a Panamanian American. What is the threat of the United States taking back the canal? What does it bring up for you? 

Cristela Guerra: So honestly, a lot of fear for how things could escalate. I think about my parents who are proud of the life we built in the United States and also instilled in me a profound love for Panama.

And the last time I was in Panama, I saw how my family there is processing this threat from the U.S. 

Maria Hinojosa: And we’re going to hear more about your latest trip to Panama right after the break.

We’re back with Panamanian American journalist Cristela Guerra, who’s going to take us with her as she visits her family in Panama, amidst ominous threats from President Trump and the United States that it wants the Panama Canal back.

Every time I land in Panama, I remember my abuelo Bolo, who worked for Pan Am, waiting as we got off the plane. Today, I land alone but lighthearted, and I hear salsa and reggaeton as soon as I got inside my rental car. (MUSIC) 

When you long for a place, everything looks romantic. The ocean, familiar skyscrapers, the flag on my way to my aunt’s house in Panama City.

I arrive at my tía’s, greeted by my cousin Ana Lorena, a sociologist who convinced me to get a matching tattoo of a burning tower on my forearm after my dad’s funeral. It’s the Guerra family crest. (LAUGHS) 

My young cousin, Sebastián, a college student who’s like my little brother.

And Adriana, a doctor, who shares a love of medicine with my dad. And my tía mami, my father’s older sister. Sharp, direct, she doesn’t suffer fools. 

Tía mami: “Welcome.” 

Cristela Guerra: “Thank you”

Tía mami: “¿De dónde vienes?” 

Cristela Guerra: “Del hotel.” 

She recently retired as the ambassador for Panama in France after 50 years in diplomacy. We kiki a little, some food and drinks and chisme.

“Estábamos hablando del último fenómeno viral de Panamá. ¿Qué es? El quince años de la princesa. I was about to (LAUGHS) 

Then we touch on what’s on everyone’s mind. American Intervention

Tía mami: “La preocupación nuestra como panameños son las declaraciones del señor Trump.” 

Cristela Guerra: The worry for us is Trump’s declarations, my aunt says. 

Tía mami: “Y con Panamá se equivoca.” 

Cristela Guerra: He’s making a mistake with Panama.

(MUSIC) 

Tía mami: “Porque tocar el canal, es tocar el territorio panameño.” 

Cristela Guerra: To mess with the canal is to mess with Panamanian territory.

Tía mami: “Aquí no hay una separación del canal y Panamá, todo es Panamá.”

Cristela Guerra: And there is no separation between the canal and the country. It’s all Panama. 

It’s true. The canal shaped Panamanian society. When Americans built the canal, they brought with them Jim Crow segregation, with them on top. Residents of the canal zone called zonians, enjoyed the comforts the color of their skin could afford them in an American caste system.

For white zonians, the Canal Zone served as an American utopia in the tropics, while Black zonians and other workers were relegated to the fringes. And Panamanians, we had to live by these rules too in the Canal Zone. My aunt remembers taking an accounting class in the Canal Zone College. 

Tía mami: “All the chairs next to the window would be used by zonians U.S. citizens because that was the best seat because you were next to the windows, you had the trees. Then you were, if you were a Panamanian, you would sit in the middle, and if you were a Black zonian, you would sit against the wall. So I was told to move just because I was a Panamanian in my own country. They would choose where I would sit.” (MUSIC FADES OUT) 

Cristela Guerra: My aunt also remembers January 9th, 1964, when Panamanian students had gotten permission to hang a Panamanian flag next to the American flag in the Canal Zone. American Zonians did’t like it. A riot broke out. 21 Panamanians and four Americans were killed. Here’s my cousin and my tía mami’s daughter, Ana Lorena. 

Ana Lorena: “Porque Panamá es de cierta forma el país más reaccionario de toda Centro América y Latino América.”

Cristela Guerra: Panama’s always been a reactionary country, she tells me. 

Ana Lorena: “Debido a vivir siempre con la bota de Uncle Sam en el cuello.” 

Cristela Guerra: Because of living with Uncle Sam’s boot at our neck, my cousin says. It’s only been 25 years since we’ve been free of U.S. control when they seeded control of the canal.

Ana Lorena: “Como el león, que desde leoncillo creció en la jaula.”

Cristela Guerra: Panama is like a lion that grew up caged.

Ana Lorena: “Y piensa que porque está rodeado de barrotes no puede salir de ahí.”

Cristela Guerra: And even when that cage is gone, the lion thinks it still has to stay in the same spot, she says, referring to feeling less than your colonizers. 

Ana Lorena: “Para mi, Panamá es su pueblo.”

Cristela Guerra: To her, the strength of Panama is its people and their pride. People who Secretary of State Marco Rubio surely saw holding Panamanian flags as he visited Panama this month, the first overseas trip for the Trump administration.

News archive: “And his Secretary of State’s first overseas mission, Marco Rubio brought an ultimatum, ultimatum to Panama’s president.”

Cristela Guerra: And after the trip, President Trump had a warning.

Donald Trump: “We’re gonna take it back or something very powerful is going to happen.”

Cristela Guerra: Panamanian protestors burned American flags and two paper figures with Trump and Rubio’s face in the street.

Archival tape: “Ni Trump, ni los gringos ni su ejército ni su gobierno tienen nada en Panamá.”

Cristela Guerra: Not Trump, not the gringos or their army or the government have anything in Panama,  a protestor shouted.

Archival tape: “Lo que está en Panamá es de los panameños.”

Cristela Guerra: What’s here belongs to the Panamanians. 

Archival tape: “El canal es panameño, la soberanía es panameña, la autodeterminación es panameña.”

Cristela Guerra: The canal, their sovereignty, their self determination, it’s all Panamanian. (MUSIC) On a recent trip to the Panama Canal, I watched with a group of tourists as ships passed through.

“The water level can equalize it. We’re about to open that. This is a chemical oil tanker right now.”

The motto of the canal remains Promundi Beneficio, which in Latin means for the benefit of the world. 

Americans may have paid and supervised workers who carved through our land, establishing an imperial power dynamic that would shape us forever.

But Panama voted to expand the canal to meet the needs of larger ships, making it more efficient and profitable through Panamanian ingenuity. Although stamped by this relationship with the U.S., we are not defined by it. There are so many things that are still simply and beautifully Panamanian. Without any American influence.

( MUSIC) 

Sebastián: “Panamá es folklore.”

Cristela Guerra: Like it’s folklore, says my cousin Sebastián. 

Sebastián: “Panamá es un conjunto de cultura, de tradiciones, de personas, un conjunto de crianzas.” 

 Cristela Guerra: It’s melding of cultures, traditions, people, beliefs. 

Adriana: “Yo, creo que yo no imagino mi vida sin Panamá.”

Cristela Guerra: I can’t imagine myself without Panama, my cousin Adriana tells me. 

Adriana: “Ta’ muy cerca. O sea esa es Panamá, cortar las palabras. Ta’ muy cerca, no ‘está muy cerca,’ sino ta’ muy cerca.” 

Cristela Guerra: Cutting our words short. Our cadence, the way the syllables roll from our tongues, that’s all Panama. 

Tía mami: “Es importante recalcar que nuestro país es más que un canal.”

Cristela Guerra: Our country is more than a canal, my aunt tells me. In Parama, our inherent worth isn’t tied to this man-made waterway. Our gold is this land, lush and green. We chart our own fate with the chasm others dredge. We don’t let threats stop us from celebrating our history, from being free. No hay nada más panameño que eso.

There is nothing more Panamanian than that.

Maria Hinojosa: Víctor Emanuel Guerra Jurado, presente. 

This episode was produced by Cristela Guerra with production assistance from Tasha Sandoval. It was edited by our co-executive producer, Maria Garcia. It was mixed by Leah Shaw Dameron. The Latino USA team also includes Fernanda Echavarri, Julia Caruso, Jessica Ellis, Victoria Estrada, Dominique Hinestrosa, Reynaldo Leaños Jr., Stephanie Lebow, Andrea López-Cruzado, Roxana Aguirre, Luis Luna, Marta Martínez, Nour Saudi, JJ Carubin, and Nancy Trujillo. Peniley Ramírez, Marlon Bishop, and myself are co-executive producers, and I’m your host, Maria Hinojosa. Join us again on our next episode. In the meantime, I’ll see you on all of our social media.

And remember, ¡No te vayas, nunca! 

Stephanie Lebow: Latino USA is made possible in part by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation; working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide; and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. For more than 50 years, advancing ideas and supporting institutions to promote a better world at hewlett.org. 

***